I have been building ecom stores now that send the traffic to Amazon Associates program now for a couple of years and found the returns to massively outstrip parking ppc which most people know is dead for the average domainer.
I have only been focusing on exact match product domains so I can’t really talk other generic terms and how successful or not they would be, development isn’t always the best solution as developing a domain name can put potential end users off from acquiring your domain if they see an active website however if you choose to sell the domain you can pull your content at any time and park it again or put up a simple for sale lander.
The most profitable area I have found to sell on Amazon is Shoes, Trainers (Sneakers) , baby shoes etc. I have a couple of stores SkateTrainers.co.uk, ShoesAndTrainers.com, BabyShoe.co.uk and they are doing well in terms of ROI – The domains are hand regs so cost on avg £8 ($10) and every pair of shoes we sell we get 10% commission. The average selling price on a pair of shoes on SkateTrainers.co.uk is £30 pounds so we make £3 ($5) on each sale doesn’t sound like a lot of money but compare that to the few cents you would get sending the traffic to ppc.
Here is an example of a sale from yesterday…
We normally sell around 10 – 15 pairs on that site most months so you then see the benefits of this domain name returning £30-£45 ($40-$50) per month which is massive compared to what it would end parked.
There are expenses involved too that you need to deduct, shares hosting £5 per month and approx 1 hour of uploads per week this isn’t just a leave it and it will keep earning revenue you do need to add new products every week but we use a really simple plugin for that so that’s why it takes only an hour per week.
If you have verified traffic in the shoe niche I would be keen to speak with you about buying your domain or leasing it to test the traffic for a period of time and if you want a store built out then I am happy to still offer this service for $50 per domain.
Thanks for sharing this information. May I ask you which plugin are you using?
We use Woozone.
Interesting post, Robbie. Thanks for sharing.
How long have you been using WooZone? I was initially intrigued by it but when I started to research it most reviews were negative and said it was buggy and the customer support by the developer was non-existent. Have you found WooZone to be a good tool?
I tried Fresh Store Builder a few years ago and found it to be a disappointing Amazon affiliate tool. Ever tried that?
Thanks Bill, great to hear from you. I have been using woozone for approx 2 years now. It’s not the perfect solution but works well for me. I use the lite version and haven’t paid for the premium version. Never tried Fresh Store Builder. Happy to chat further about it if you would like to learn more.